


Kingsman The Golden Circle: HISHE

by TheSilverQueen



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Merlin, F/M, Fix-It, Harry Hart Lives, Kingsman 2 Spoilers, M/M, The Golden Circle Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-04 07:06:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/pseuds/TheSilverQueen
Summary: How It Should Have Ended aka a collection of ficlets to help me express the wide variety of feels I have after watching Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Ficlets will range from full on fix-its to just random missing scenes. You have been warned.Chapter 1: What if Merlin had noticed Charlie's arm hacking Kingsman?Chapter 2: Roxy definitely dove into a fortified closet, okay.Chapter 3: "Merlin takes his foot off the trigger and . . . nothing happens. 'Ah, bollocks,' Merlin mutters, even as Harry and Eggsy swear and start shooting."





	1. Merlin stops the hack attack

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah I saw Kingsman 2 today and it kinda destroyed me, both in good ways and bad ways. For a more coherent but also SPOILER filled post about my feels, deepdarkwaters did an excellent round-up and you should read it if you don't care about spoilers or, like me, have seen the film and want help processing it - just click [here](http://thesilverqueenlady.tumblr.com/post/165630009629/kingsman-the-golden-circle).
> 
> Thanks to my darlings insanereddragon and missbeckwrites for helping me gather myself back together when I went to them crying immediately after coming home from the film *blows kisses*
> 
> Disclaimer: Please don't take any of my ficlets as being a "why wasn't [character] good enough to do A, B, C". These ficlets are literally just a fun exercise to be like "Okay, but what if this thing changed and we got a different ending". Also I don't own Kingsman. Obviously.

Merlin watches Eggsy’s tracker sink into the sewers and be swept away by the flood and can’t help the way he smiles. Most of it is because he is, as always, amazed by the boy. Eggsy has always been brilliant and different, ever since he first smashed through the bulletproof window in a move that ended the first trial in a way no one had ever done in Kingsman’s entire recorded history. Merlin has guided him on many missions and Eggsy never fails to surprise him. Logically, it should mean that Merlin should stop feeling surprised, at some point, but as he watches Eggsy move through the sewers, he is still – against everything – quite faintly surprised. 

The rest of it is yet another old friend: the constant dull ache when he thinks of the way Harry had smiled, that first night in the pub when the knights had gathered to gossip about their candidates, and Harry had been so blindingly proud of his boy that Merlin had quite badly wanted to slap him up the head with his clipboard. He thinks, as he always does, that it’s such a pity his old friend never got to see the boy whose cocoon he helped spin emerge, fully fledged and as radiant as any in his collection.

He can even picture Harry’s reply. _I had little to do with it. Eggsy was already Kingsman material. I just pointed him in the right direction._

“And we are the better for it,” Merlin says quietly, because if Harry had to die, leaving such a legacy as Eggsy Unwin is no small feat. Merlin already is grateful to have had a hand in training the boy; Harry will no doubt go down in infamy for being his sponsor.

He’s actually so lost in his memory that, to his shame, it takes four beeps before he realizes that he’s missed the warning notifications from Galahad’s cab.

Except Eggsy is gone, long since gone actually, and if he’d’ve given up, he’d likely be spitting curse words in Merlin’s ear by now. So it’s not him attempting – and failing – to enter his passcode into the cab and it’s not the police either, because Merlin can still see them on the surveillance video staring into the lake like it holds the secrets to Atlantis.

The screen flickers and says, _Passcode acquired_ and Merlin says, “Hmm, I don’t think so.”

It’s very easy to divert whoever the intruder is into the false Kingsman databank, filled with mostly nonsense information on Kingsman tailors like order details on cloth and inventory for threads. It’s all boring, and not even close to the real Kingsman numbers on inventory for their stock, never mind the real information on the agency behind the Kingsman tailors, but for any normal person it would pass muster.

Except this is not a normal person, because the intruder immediately starts banging its head against the Kingsman firewalls.

Merlin takes a long sip of his tea, grimacing at the bitterness from tea long gone cold, but he’s able to ignore that because this is actually the most interesting thing in this entire week. True, it’s been a long time since a Kingsman agent had a shootout racing through the streets of London, but Merlin’s guided literally hundreds of such exhibitions. Having something or someone hack an empty Kingsman cab is something new, and it sets his heart racing and his fingers dancing as he isolates the intruder as best he can, drowning it in false data to occupy it before he turns his attention to making a few discreet inquiries of his own.

Turnabout is fair play after all.

It turns out that the hacker is actually a remotely controlled bionic arm, which Eggsy had mentioned ripping off of Hesketh, but that’s not nearly as interesting as the data Merlin gets once he makes his way past the firewalls.

12 missiles, branded with a golden circle and confirmed for twelve distinct targets: 10 safehouses whose addresses Merlin knows like the back of his hand, the shop that Merlin helped modernize, and the mansion headquarters he is currently in.

“This night just gets better and better,” Merlin says to no one, even as he moves from the hand to the network it’s plugged into and keeps digging. He went into Kingsman seeking an adrenaline and glory-filled adventure, but most of the time it’s just him behind a desk shouting at agents not to blow stuff up. It’s so rarely that the actual spy thriller tropes come in, and Merlin is beyond thrilled that it is.

He’s actually so deep into it that when Eggsy pops back up, cursing and no doubt smelling unbelievably foul, he doesn’t even flinch when Eggsy snarls expletives and takes off running, panting heavily.

“Merlin? Are you even listening?” Eggsy says.

Agents. So demanding. “I’m a little busy, Galahad. Your friend left Kingsman a little gift that is currently trying to hack into our servers as we speak.”

He can almost see the way Eggsy stutters to a stop. “What?!”

“Do you remember that bionic hand?”

“Well, yeah, I’d remember that, he tried to off me with it!”

“It seems it can be remotely activated and has someone who is very interested in Kingsman sitting at the controls. It went right for the personnel files on all the agents and their locations. Thankfully, it is currently munching its way through our thread inventory files from the 1970s and hasn’t made much progress.”

Dead silence follows his words. Merlin can’t say he’s surprised at that either. Eggsy is as talented as any of them at computers and hacking, and what little he was missing, the Kingsman training gave him. Yet he, like all the agents, has grown so used to the handlers, and Merlin by extension, being the ones sitting at their controls, feeding them information and defending them from surprise attacks that Merlin knows that Eggsy is at once yearning to come and offer help and at the same time understanding that this is Merlin’s moment and not his.

Still, because Harry did mentor a gentleman, Eggsy ventures a tentative, “Do you want some help?”

Agents. So predictable. Merlin hides a smile and says, “No, Galahad, I’ll be fine. Run along to that dinner of yours. I’ll expect you to report tomorrow for your debrief. Hopefully by then I’ll have more information on your friend.”

Eggsy scoffs. “He ain’t my friend.”

“I won’t be your friend either if you keep distracting me. Shoo, Galahad.”

And, because the universe loves Merlin so much, not one second passes after Eggsy signs off before Agent Lancelot wanders in, yawning behind her hand and carrying a steaming mug of tea. Her hair is down, even though she’s dressed to the nines as usual, and Merlin has to stop to smile at her because he can’t help himself.

His smile only grows when she catches sight of the frantic way he is typing and her shoulders immediately tense, all tiredness falling away in seconds the exact way he trained her. “What’s this? It’s nearly 2100, what on earth could possibly be the matter?”

“Remember our dear friend Charlie?”

Roxy’s nose wrinkles, although she does not start burping out expletives the way Eggsy certainly would have. “Unfortunately. Why?”

“It appears he survived V-Day and is currently allied with a, hmm, so-called Golden Circle that is currently attempting to hack us and steal information so they can aim missiles at our agents and headquarters.”

Roxy blinks, and then she immediately pulls up a chair and grabs the nearest tablet. Each agent is generally known for a particular personality and skill set, and if Harry’s was explosions and old-fashioned charm and Eggsy’s is gymnastic feats and the eagerness of youth, Roxy is steadiness all the way through. Almost nothing fazes her, and Merlin loves her for it. “I have been gathering rumors about a Golden Circle,” she murmurs. “I thought it was just a rumor.”

“They have 12 missiles aimed at us, people wielding bionic arms, drones, and a secret base in the jungle,” Merlin replies. “I don’t think rumor is the correct term anymore.”

“So what now?”

“Well, we can always use more drones,” Merlin muses, and he commanders three just for the fun of it. Then he isolates and magnetizes Galahad’s cab, so that bionic arm that started this entire mess won’t go scuttling away before Merlin’s had a chance to pry it apart. And then, finally, he kicks out the intruder to the curb and shuts the door firmly behind it, and with that down, he leans back with the sigh of a job well done and takes the tea a smiling Roxy places in his hand.

Or tries to, anyways.

Roxy, mug clutched close, dodges him with a sly smile. “Come on, Merlin, it’s bedtime.”

“You really think you can successfully play keep away with me?” Merlin drawls, because it really is amusing how quickly agents forget that he’s the one who bloody trained them, mostly by beating them into the mats with his bare hands until they stopped rolling their eyes and started paying attention.

“I learned from the best,” Roxy says and then she takes off laughing and Merlin, after a quick look to make sure all the alerts are set and everything is contained, takes off after her.

* * *

“Galahad, has the target been acquired?”

“Swearing but safe.”

“Lancelot, has the target been acquired?”

“I’m sending off the sample to the lab now, Merlin.”

“Well, then: Arthur, do I have your permission to proceed?”

“Permission granted.”

* * *

Charlie gets exactly three seconds to look up and say, “Oh for – ” before the twelve missiles turn around on their journey to Kingsman and fly like homing pigeons right back to their original launching bases.

The Golden Circle dies a fiery death with no one any the wiser, and Merlin is just about ready to sign off on another apocalypse averted when he gets a ping saying that Galahad’s glasses have been activated, quite suddenly. At first he disregards it, because Eggsy is as bad as Harry was at forgetting to set his glasses on regular streaming mode instead of active mission mode, but when he looks again and realizes he has streams from not one but _two_ Galahad glasses, for the first time in almost forty years muscle memory fails him and he has to type twice to bring up the second feed.

It’s slightly blurry and cracked on one side, but it is very clearly a man with an eye patch and a sweater staring into the lenses, saying, “I don’t know what these are, I can’t – they don’t mean anything to me.”

“Please, sir, just try,” a woman says off-screen. “They might be able to help you find out who you are.”

Merlin says, “For hell’s sake, Harry, bloody awful timing as always,” and then he brings up the other Galahad’s feed and says, “Eggsy, there’s going to be a slight detour after you drop off Elton John in the States.”

Eggsy groans dramatically. “Merlin, I smell awful and there’s blood everywhere and my bloody pants are ripped from those stupid robotic dogs, do I really have to?”

Merlin, because he can also be dramatic, hits the key to send the feed of the now very confused Harry staring straight into the broken lenses as though it contains all the answers to the universe as he holds them roughly two inches from his good eye.

“MERLIN WHAT THE – ”

“Oh, just go to Kentucky, Eggsy,” Merlin says. “I’ll rendezvous with you.”

“You better.”

FINIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obvs after that Eggsy brings back Harry's memory and it's all beautiful and golden and NOTHING HURTS. 
> 
> My next ficlet (and I cannot stress enough how much I don't know when it will come out) will feature a Roxy POV. That's all I'm saying.


	2. Roxy Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxy most definitely dove into a fortified Kingsman closet and no one can tell me otherwise okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Serious Kingsman 2 spoilers here, folks. You have been warned.

If anyone was to ask Roxy what parts of her training she had the most vivid memories of, there would be two instances: the parachute dive where she thought, for the briefest moment, that she might have to watch her best friend die in front of her, and the multi-tasking test where a gaggle of support staff had bombarded her with distractions and requests all at the same time. She had just barely scraped through the parachute test, but she had passed the multi-tasking test with flying colors.

It is, perhaps, because of that success that she has the few seconds of warning when Eggsy’s feed goes shaky as he gasps and the warning sirens in the mansion headquarters, because she is able to keep track of Eggsy’s feed, her research into the Golden Circle, and the alarms stationed every few feet without going nuts. The second everything goes crazy, she swears, throws her laptop away, grabs the closest Kingsman weapon (a Rainmaker, because Eggsy keep picking her room’s lock and forgetting random stuff there), and hurls herself at her closet. 

Of course, because this is Kingsman, the closet is fortified to withstand a nuclear blast, has ten different hidden compartments in the floor alone, and is equipped with an emergency parachute.

So Roxy rides out the blast in her closet and prays for the safety of her fellow Kingsman.

* * *

Fortunately for Roxy, between the sturdy walls and the amount of clothing in her closet, the fortifications and padding protect her from serious injury.

Unfortunately for Roxy, she is smacked around quick a bit as the mansion crumbles around her, and her glasses snap clean in half when her closet lands with a thump on the ground, cutting off any hope at communication with any surviving staff.

The situation sucks and the air smells awful when she finally manages to shove the door open, but Merlin once dumped them in a landfill in their pajamas with their hands tied behind their backs and gave them 4 hours to get back to Kingsman HQ without utilizing any form of public transport or untying their hands, so Roxy has faced worse. She grits her teeth, ties back her hair, secures her pants and shirt, and starts climbing.

* * *

_Memorize this address and these words,_ Merlin had said, the second she had reported to him after being formally welcomed by Arthur and the Table. _It’s the most important protocol Kingsman has that I hope we never have to use._

Roxy had swallowed and followed his orders, because Merlin had sounded dead serious then. She had gotten quite good at reading his face, the way he teased them and the way he could turn in a second into a ferocious roaring bear to be feared if someone messed with what he considered his: agents, tech, trainees. He’d once literally made a staffer pee his pants in the mess hall when he had caught them messing about with the trainees’ puppies.

_What is it?_

_It’s the Kingsman Doomsday Protocol. None of my predecessors have ever needed it, but we all need to know it._

Roxy had looked at him then, the stern line of his chin and the steel in his eyes, and had ventured, _This says to rendezvous with the highest ranking handler and all remaining agents. What if there is only one remaining agent?_

 _Well, then, lass,_ Merlin had replied, _I think I’ve trained you well enough to survive on your own._

* * *

Roxy’s safehouse is blown to smithereens, because of course it is. However, her secondary safehouse – the one she bought in cash with a false name with her second Kingsman paycheck at the discreet advice of her dear uncle Percival – is still standing and untouched as always, if a bit dusty. She dons a new suit, grabs her spare set of glasses, and sets off for the address that’s burned into her memory while she goes through the database.

She winces as she walks. Essentially every major agent’s safehouse is destroyed, as well as the main shop and headquarters. It’ll be hell rebuilding after this, and they had only just finished putting Kingsman back together after the months of internal investigations over Valentine.

What’s more worrying is that she detects very little activity on the Kingsman network. No call to arms, no coordinates for gathering at a different branch or different HQ, no tallies of the dead or missing. Absolutely nothing, just dead silence, and while she’s trained to operate in total radio silence, she doesn’t particularly like it. 

Of course, there is another scenario, but for now she refuses to admit it entrance into her mind.

She can’t be the only survivor. She _can’t be_.

“Hello,” she says brightly when she walks into, of all things, a wine shop. “I’m from Kingsman and I’d like to buy some wine. Tasting room 3 will do nicely.”

The man’s face creases, even though his customer service smile remains flawless and doesn’t budge a centimeter. “But of course, madam,” he says smoothly. “You may join your colleagues, although they did not mention they would be joined by another.”

“Yes, well, they’re rather the type to rush ahead and forget to wait on their colleagues,” Roxy says dryly, because the alternative is grabbing him by the lapels and demanding to know exactly who else had survived – or who else was impersonating Kingsman agents. She’s half tempted to hack the security cameras as it is.

The Doomsday Protocol had been rather simple, in the end. It had been go to these coordinates, say these words, crack the code, and the solution to any and all problems would lie therein.

Suffice to say, what she was _not_ expecting was to hear sobbing.

The way Eggsy shoots up and nearly falls over his chair as Merlin’s jaw drops when she rounds the corner is incredibly satisfying, and Roxy is beyond glad that she has her glasses on and recording to save the moment forever and rub it in their faces.

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Rox – Roxy,” Eggsy stammers, barely able to push the name out.

“Roxy,” Merlin says, and it’s with his accent in full force, the one she hasn’t heard since Merlin got drunk as a skunk a week after V-Day and had a proper cry over, well, Harry and Arthur and pretty much everything. 

Then again, she can see an almost completely drained bottle of whisky on the table, so maybe it’s not quite so surprising.

“Did you really think so little of me?” she chides, but she hugs Eggsy so tight that he wriggles and whines in her ear even though he’s squeezing her ribs just as tight. “And you,” she says, poking Merlin when he staggers over, “do you really have such a low opinion of your training? And your equipment? By the way, that parachute in the closet idea really was an excellent one and I – ”

Roxy stutters to a halt when Merlin hugs her, almost as tight as Eggsy. He looks the most disheveled she has ever seen: tie undone, buttons popped open, glasses abandoned in the table. He smells like sweat and ash and booze and cologne, but she hugs him back because _god_. She can’t imagine Kingsman without Merlin’s steady hand. 

“I hoped, lass, I hoped,” Merlin whispers, and there is a genuine, soft smile on his face that makes her face flush red.

“Well, I hope you’ve saved some of this whisky for me,” she declares, and she snatches the bottle from Eggsy’s weak grab (honestly, Eggsy) and pours herself a decent amount into the remaining glass.

Or begins to, anyways.

She stops halfway, mostly because Eggsy and Merlin have drank so much that it’s quite clear to her when she sees the faint “Made in Kentucky” engraved at the bottom with the Kingsman sigil that sends her glasses shrieking in her ears. It doesn’t bring up any data points or files, but she knows, as surely as she knows that they’ll be all right now, that there’s a reason for it.

“I think we’re going to Kentucky, boys,” she says.

“Fried chicken,” Merlin mutters, wiping at his glasses, while Eggsy makes a face and says, “South Glade Mission Church.”

Which, fair enough, but seriously.

“How would you two survive without me,” she sighs at them, and goes to get her laptop.

* * *

“ _Did you just swing an axe at a barrel filled with aging bourbon?_ ” Roxy hisses, even as she fiddles with her own biometric security lock. The signal is rather bad out here, so they’re getting delayed feedback from each other and video feeds are out of the question, but the way guilty silence fills the airwaves says everything she needs to know.

Then, of course, there is a lot of posturing and grunting and the way both Merlin and Eggsy’s trackers go faint and slow in her glasses, and Roxy groans. Quietly, because she knows better, but still.

“Of course you had to get yourselves knocked out. Boys. Honestly.”

Because Roxy is not an impulsive idiot, she does not swing an axe at the vault her watch detects. Instead she starts poking around for weaknesses or a keypad, since the tracks and dust patterns in the floor tell her that there is something down there. She’s eventually rewarded with a discreet little number pad at the back, and cracking the code is an easy feat with Kingsman glasses.

Of course, she still walks straight into the firing line of a gun, but that is something that probably couldn’t be helped.

“Hands up, girlie,” the man says. 

“I’m so sorry, I was told the bathroom needed a pass to get in?” Roxy says sweetly, because it’s worth a try and sometimes, if she bats her eyes just right, it actually works, even if Merlin makes dramatic gagging sounds in her ear because he can be a right prick sometimes when he’s bored and the mission is low-risk.

“Can it,” the man snaps. “This is Agent Bourbon here, I’ve got another one of them suited-up British folks. This one’s in the med-wing. I’ll bring her to – urk!”

Roxy smacks his head into the wall one more time, just in case, and then takes his glasses and his gun. “And that,” she tells him, “is for my two friends. Thank you kindly, I’ll be on my way now if you’ve no objections?”

The unconscious man, of course, does not reply.

“Excellent,” Roxy beams.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t make it more than three steps before a pleasant female voice says, “Nice moves. Take one more step and you’ll never walk again in your life.”

The floor tiles light up, flickering with crackling blue light, so Roxy pauses because she’s not an idiot.

“I’m Ginger,” the woman says, her smile as pleasant and as sharp-edged as her voice. She’s wearing glasses too, but she carries only a clipboard and a white lab coat. If she hadn’t trained for weeks alongside Merlin’s support staff, she might make the mistake of thinking this woman as an easy target, but she knows as well as anyone that it’s the ones that everyone underestimates that are the most dangerous. “Please state your name and business. Oh, and please don’t try shooting me; bullets tend to ricochet off the walls here, and I can duck into a room but you most certainly cannot.”

“My name is Roxy. I come from Kingsman Tailors, it’s a shop in London. We were given a bottle of Statesman whiskey that led us here.”

Ginger raises one eyebrow.

“Here,” Roxy says and very, very carefully lays down her gun to pull out the now empty bottle of whisky and slide it across the floor. “See for yourself. I’m sure with your considerable resources you can pull up information on Kingsman on your glasses.”

That, of course, gets her a sharp look, but Ginger does not seem any more swayed by the bottle than she was by Roxy’s words, so Roxy goes with her gut and throws caution to the winds. 

“Look,” she says, “my friends and I, we need help. Someone killed all of our friends and destroyed our homes, and we think they’re planning something even worse. We were told that in the event that all was lost, the Doomsday Vault – and whatever was in it – would have the answers to our problems. That bottle was in it.”

Ginger is too well-trained to give away her emotions, but something in her eyes flicker when Roxy mentions the Doomsday Vault. Just a little something, but it’s better than nothing.

“Kingsman was founded to help those who needed it,” she adds. “I think Statesman has a similar motto. Please help us.”

“Hmm. We’ll see,” Ginger says, and then she taps a button that makes some sort of liquid ooze from the floor. Roxy tries to dodge, but it hardens very rapidly and soon she’s stuck to the floor, unable to wrench her feet up and unable to make any progress with scratching it off. “Stay right there, that’s a dear. I have some things to clear first before I give Agent Bourbon here the right to knock you out.”

* * *

“Oh, wow, where’d you dig this one up, Ginger?” says the cowboy, even as Eggsy and Merlin brush right past Roxy without anything more than a quick smile from the former and a quick brush of hands from the latter. She doesn’t blame them, of course, given that she’s too busy staring, aghast, at the sight of an alive Harry bloody Hart in the next room.

“She kicked Agent Bourbon into the wall,” Ginger replies pleasantly, even as she perches neatly on the chair to watch. “And then she convinced me to open our Doomsday Vault.”

The cowboy whistles. “Damn. Maybe it’s a good thing these folks are our Doomsday plan.”

“Well, we at least would not have threatened to set your balls on fire,” Roxy tells him dryly, partly to see the way he flushes and awkwardly swings the umbrella and partly because when Eggsy and Merlin’s glasses had transmitted that to her she had indeed rolled her eyes and started running a little faster behind Ginger.

“I was just doing my job?” he offers.

Roxy just crosses her arms.

* * *

Roxy gives Eggsy a good luck kiss before he boards the jet to team up with Agent Whiskey, mostly because he still looks faintly ill from the unpleasant revelation that Harry has no idea who he or Eggsy or Kingsman is. Thankfully, she does not have to participate in the mission that is “get into Charlie’s ex’s pants” although honestly, watching as they try all sort of terrifying, shocking triggers for Harry really isn’t much better.

Watching Harry drown is, perhaps, the worst. Her own drowning experience still leaves her with shivers from time to time, and she can feel the way tension makes Merlin vibrate in place as Harry screams in the room.

“He’ll be fine, Merlin,” Roxy tells him, but when she touches his hand, he squeezes it hard enough that her bones creak in protest.

Roxy had, like every trainee, seen the other agents in passing, but Agent Galahad she had only seen once. Everything else she knows about the famous Harry Hart is in passing or from Eggsy’s ramblings, both drunken and completely sober. She knows that he had a very dry wit, somewhat sadistic sense of humor, loved explosions, excelled in hand-to-hand combat, and held the record for the oldest active agent, but those are just dry facts and numbers, in the end. Harry Hart is an actual living breathing person, one incredibly damaged, and one now flailing desperately as he runs out of air.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Merlin says abruptly, and then he stabs at Ginger’s clipboard and practically runs out of the room.

Ginger sighs, but there’s a sense of resigned sadness in her eyes that makes Roxy even sadder.

“There’s nothing more we can do, is there?” she asks.

Ginger shakes her head. “This was the last and most traumatizing thing we could think of,” she replies. “It’s been a year. Even if your Agent Galahad did regain his memories . . . well. It might be kinder to let him go, Agent Lancelot. Merlin says he has one of the best and longest service records in your agency. Maybe it is time to let him retire and live out his days in peace. He gets a second chance. It’s more than the most of us.”

* * *

She finds Merlin a wreck in their rooms afterwards. He’s not as disheveled as he was before, and in fact the only thing out of place is his glasses, neatly turned out in a way Merlin never has them, but his shoulders are shaking.

“Merlin,” Roxy says, and nothing else when she hugs him.

What else could she possibly say? She knows that Harry and Merlin had served together for a long, long, long time. They were the last of their candidate class, before Merlin swerved left into tech and Harry continued forward as Galahad, and now with the fall of Kingsman they are quite literally the last of the old guard. She tries to imagine losing Eggsy and she just can’t; he’s as much a part of her as her uncle and Kingsman is.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Roxy,” Merlin whispers, and he sounds so old that her heart aches. “I’m not Arthur. I’m not even really Merlin. I’m just an old man with glasses and a clipboard.”

“Maybe that’s all we need,” Roxy says. “We don’t need a miracle, Merlin. Just someone to make sure we don’t die.”

“I’ve put far too much work into you to have you die now.” His tone is indignant. Good.

She’s not really sure why she kisses him, except quite suddenly she is. His eyes are wide as saucers, but his hands flex on her waist and he kisses her back, and those quiet wild dreams Eggsy and she had swapped over late drinking nights about Harry and Merlin pale in comparison to the real Merlin in front of her, wrinkled and exhausted but so very real and warm.

“If you say anything about this being against the rules,” she hisses when he opens his mouth, “I will slap you.”

Eggsy had fallen for Harry with the kind of love that graces rom-coms. He had taken one look, basically, and fallen arse over tit, and then spent the rest of his time panting sadly after the one man who panted right back, just a bit more subtlety. Roxy, on the other hand, had fallen in love much like that famous John Green quote: slowly, as she gotten to know the tech magician who trained them and kept them alive and alternately shouted criticism and praise at them when they came back alive but sans workable gadgets, and then all at once, when she’d looked up and realized that he was the steadiest man she’d ever known, and what more could she ask for, really?

“Actually,” Merlin says hoarsely, “I was about to say, I still have one more bug to deactivate.”

“Well, get on with it. Tomorrow we might actually die.”

* * *

Roxy wakes up to the blankets all tucked neatly around her but no Merlin. However, his clipboard and glasses are still on the bedside table, so he hasn’t just left her alone like some one night stand. 

Still, Merlin can be a sneaky bastard when he wants to.

“Merlin?”

“Washroom,” he says, and his voice is slightly muzzy from sleep but strong and clear and definitely not relayed through a glasses feed so she relaxes. She’s as possessive as any of them, because Kingsman makes one possessive of things they hold dear, but she’s not stupid; Merlin has a calling and a job and she will never interfere with it. She will, however, take as much time with him as he can.

Especially when he comes out bare-chested and bare-footed. “Looking good, Merlin,” she smirks, propping her chin on a pillow. “Now I know why you were able to put my uncle on the floor in three minutes flat.”

The normal Merlin would either have blushed or gone full stoic mode. This Merlin just sort of gives her a raised eyebrow over a cheeky little grin, and it makes her dizzy with how much she wants to grab him by the arm and kiss him again until she can taste that smile in her throat.

“I thought I already showed you.”

“Seeing is believing. Isn’t that what you trained us?”

“Ah, you’ve got me there.”

“Like I could get the great Merlin,” she scoffs, but when he slides back into bed she takes the open arm for the invitation it is and curls up against his chest. He’s warm and solid and his heartbeat is strong, and she stopped being able to feel safe a long time ago, but this is good. She can sleep like this, at least.

Merlin kisses her head and taps absently at his clipboard. “Don’t put yourself down, lass. You’ve taken me off guard before. Remember when – oh my god.”

“Is that – ” Roxy squints and rubs at her eyes, because. Well. “Is that – Is that streaming live from Harry’s cell?”

The Statesman have insisted that Harry is not a prisoner and is not in a cell. Given that the walls are padded and Harry can’t leave of his own free will and there are at least seven cameras all over the place, Roxy firmly disagrees. Merlin and Eggsy had disagreed too, but they’d been rather more shocked by Harry’s state of mind to make any demands that Harry be moved somewhere more suitable.

“Oh my god,” Merlin says, when the cute scene of Harry smiling at a puppy becomes a rather more twisted scene of Eggsy chasing Harry and the puppy around with a gun.

Merlin grabs his sweater, Roxy grabs a shirt, and they both take off running.

Unfortunately or fortunately, by the time they both make it, it’s clear that whatever Eggsy did, he has jogged free Harry’s memories. The butterfly-obsessed Harry had slouched and wavered; this Harry stands tall and light on feet, ready for battle the way Kingsman always are. His eyes are clear and actually show some recognition at the sight of them, and it’s a toss up as to who is holding back tears of joy more: Eggsy or Merlin.

And because neither of them wants to talk, Roxy, as always, rolls her eyes and takes the lead. “We’re at Statesman headquarters. It’s nice to finally meet you, Galahad.”

Harry shakes hands like Eggsy; or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. Either way, his hands are firm and his eyes unwavering as he looks at her. “It’s nice to finally meet you as well, Lancelot. Eggsy has told me so much about you. And so has Percival.”

“Well,” Roxy says hastily, because she has no desire to start crying as well, “I think Merlin has some spare suits?”

* * *

It’s a tight squeeze between her boys, but Eggsy is practically thrumming with happiness and Merlin has unwound so much that she’s rather surprised he isn’t a puddle on the ground, so she just smiles and leans against Merlin as Eggsy present Harry with all the new gadgets like a puppy bringing sticks to his master.

Harry was already formidable once he regained his memory, but in the proper Kingsman suit and with the new Kingsman glasses, he looks utterly out of their league. Roxy knows she’s deadly and she’s certainly seen Eggsy kick butt, but Harry looks like he could eat them for breakfast without breaking a sweat. He’s been doing this for longer than they’ve been alive and his steely glare proves it.

Of course, that illusion is stripped away rather quickly once a thug takes brutal advantage of Harry’s new blind spot and starts whaling on him, which makes Eggsy leap out of the booth like a rabbit whose tail has been torched.

“I thought you fixed me,” Harry snaps. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Well, we did fix you,” Merlin answers with a shrug. “But you’ve lost an eye, Harry. It’ll take time to build up new reflexes and coordination and depth perception.”

“And the phantom butterflies?”

“You may experience episodes. Give it time.”

The way Harry sighs strips away whatever illusion she had left. Harry Hart is indeed formidable, but he’s damaged like them all. And while Eggsy and Roxy might carry nightmares aplenty, Harry has nightmares and a missing eye. His resignation is almost painful to watch, considering that her uncle had once described Agent Galahad as the most capable agent in hand to hand combat in the table.

“Give it time, Harry,” Eggsy urges, leaning into his mentor’s shoulder. Harry tenses, briefly, but then he lowers his shoulder and lets Eggsy press close. “Soon you’ll be kicking my arse on the mats again.”

“There will be no arse kicking until I have cleared both of you,” Merlin interrupts, eyebrows severe.

Eggsy whines at him and Harry raises a wordless eyebrow, and just like that, the tension clears. Roxy puts her head on Merlin’s shoulder and smiles, because these are her boys, and they’ll be all right.

But of course, peace doesn’t last long.

* * *

They make her fly the plane because “You’re the best pilot, Rox!”

It’s utter bull, but Roxy allows it. She knows that Eggsy is itching for some real action, and that Harry is just as restless to prove that he’s still got it. And she also knows that Agent Whiskey seems a lot less sure of Harry, although it could just be because Harry is wearing the weirdest cowboy jacket and suit combo outfit she has ever seen. Even Eggsy – who is so in love with Harry it’s seeped into his subconscious – gives Harry the side-eye for it.

It doesn’t get any better when, as Whiskey and Eggsy bounce off to collect their gear, Harry pointedly closes the cockpit door and activates the secure field.

“Agent Galahad?” she asks politely.

“Keep the plane ready for quick extraction,” Harry says, after long moment of staring into the distance. “I have a . . . let’s say, a bad feeling about this.”

Roxy pauses, because if there’s one thing she’s learned whilst running shotgun to more experienced agents, it’s that one should never discount their instincts firsthand. Sometimes they are just paranoid, but their senses are honed and refined in a way that Roxy’s just isn’t yet. Theoretically, she’s done the training and the pattern recognition, but they’ve lived it so they just have the advantage.

“Do you think the antidote isn’t here?”

“I’m less worried about the antidote,” Harry professes, “than what some members of our team might do with it.”

“Eggsy wouldn’t – Oh. You mean the Americans?” 

On one hand, Harry isn’t the oldest surviving agent in Kingsman because he’s an idiot. On the other hand . . . the Statesman did hold him prisoner and do god knows what to him for months on end. 

Harry must sense her struggle. “Just. Be ready, Lancelot.” Then he just nods solemnly at her and slides back out.

And that’s not ominous or anything, so Roxy does what she always does when she’s nervous in the field: she contacts Merlin. 

“They can’t already have run into trouble,” Merlin greets her with when he accepts the call. 

“You’re really putting your bets on the two Galahads to not get into trouble at the earliest opportunity?”

Merlin grunts. “Fair enough. What did they do now?”

“Oh, nothing yet. Just a hunch.”

“Lancelot.”

“Maybe have medical on stand-by.”

“Roxy.”

“ . . . Let’s just say that Galahad is . . . not the most excited about working with the Americans.”

“Harry is a paranoid bastard.”

“A paranoid bastard with a gun, Merlin. He would never hurt Eggsy, but . . .”

Merlin sighs. He, more than anyone, knows just what Harry is capable of. And he is their chief strategist; he probably has run the same calculations to weigh Harry’s long track record of success and survival against his likely bias against the Statesman and faces the same struggle as her. “Keep the line open, lass. I’ll be listening.”

“Thanks, Merlin.”

* * *

When Roxy sets the plane to autopilot and goes back to the cabin, she almost wishes she had brought her thick coat. Not because the heater is malfunctioning, because this is Statesman tech and it wouldn’t dare to malfunction, but because Harry and Eggsy have the second cold war going on in between their silence.

“Honestly,” Merlin sighs in her ear.

Roxy sighs back, because _boys_.

“Right,” Roxy says with a clap, making both agents startle. “You, cockpit. It’s turn to fly. You, sit down, I need to do some brain scans to make sure the hypoxia didn’t permanently damage you.” When both Harry and Eggsy open their mouths indignantly, because god forbid she give them an opportunity to calm down and think rationally, she crosses her arms and finishes, “Anyone who doesn’t want to listen to me has to explain themselves to Merlin.”

“I am not their parent,” Merlin grumbles.

Of course, by then Harry has grumpily slouched into the cockpit and Eggsy has sulkily sat down, so Roxy just ignores Merlin and goes to get a scanner. She doesn’t have to wait long; anyone who thinks Eggsy becoming part of Kingsman means he can keep his mouth shut clearly never knew him that well to begin with.

“He’s just so _unbelievable_ ,” Eggsy whines at her, flinching whenever she so much as pokes him. “He shot him! In the head!”

“Eggsy,” Roxy says patiently, because she loves him but sometimes she really wants to kick him in the privates, “one, stop moving because you’re messing up my scan. Two, have you ever considered that maybe you shouldn’t be mad at Harry even if he is wrong?”

“Rox! He shot him in the – !”

“Eggsy. Listen to me. If Harry refused to give Whiskey a gun, that means he feared that it would turned against him and by extension you. Would you really begrudge Harry for not wanting to risk your life?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Right, and you insisted on giving Harry the newest Kevlar weave suit because he’s a helpless duckling?”

Eggsy bites his lip. He’s not an idiot. Roxy damn well knows he’s thought of this. Harry might play pranks, Harry might tease, Harry might even beat Eggsy in a sparring match, but they both know that Harry would rather take another bullet to the face than risk Eggsy if it was unavoidable. It’s the kind of sentiment that Merlin was always warning against, but Roxy has seen Harry’s files and knows that he led a very solitary, lonely life. It makes sense that he’s grown attached to Eggsy. It makes even more sense that now, having seen what Eggsy has become, Harry would fight even harder to defend Eggsy.

“He shot Whiskey in the _head_ , Roxy,” Eggsy mumbles.

“You would too, if someone threatened Harry.”

His silence is incredibly telling. Or maybe not so much. They are Kingsman agents, of course. They were all trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

“Harry might be right. Or he might be wrong,” Roxy tells him with a hug. “But you and I both know exactly why Harry pulled the trigger, and it’s not because he was seeing butterflies or having a brain fart.”

* * *

Merlin gives her a raised eyebrow when she slinks into the cockpit and tucks her head in his shoulder, but he doesn’t push her off. “You left them alone?”

“If they were killing each other, you’d already know, Merlin.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you think Harry was right?” Roxy asks, because she hadn’t picked up any weird vibes from Whiskey and clearly neither has Eggsy, but Merlin has admittedly spent more time with the Statesman and probably has hacked their agent files to pieces anyways. He probably knows them all better than they know themselves by now.

Merlin just sighs and rests his head against hers. “I don’t know, lass. I have different instincts than field agents. And I didn’t see the field footage.”

“But is it a possibility?”

“You wouldn’t be asking me if you didn’t think it was. You also would not have made off with extra alpha gel packets.”

“I was taught by the best.”

“Thank you.”

“I meant Eggsy.”

“Oh.”

Roxy smiles and punches him playfully, because he sounds so downcast about it she can’t help but smile. “Now, how to cover up for my theft is what I did learn from yours truly.”

“That is the worst attempt I have ever seen of appeasing someone’s ego.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“No,” Merlin says firmly, but he’s smiling again and this time when she leans up and presses her lips to his, he kisses her back.

* * *

If the click under Eggsy’s heel is her worst nightmare, the sight of Merlin standing with his foot on the trigger is the end of her world. From the way Eggsy and Harry are staring at him with their faces so raw she would look away if she wasn’t too busy staring at Merlin, she imagines that it’s not just her apocalypse. 

Luckily for them, this is Roxy’s second worst nightmare right before an apocalypse, so she takes her grappling hook and starts tying it around Merlin’s waist.

“Lass, now is not the time,” Merlin hisses. “Get on with you. Stick to the plan.”

Roxy ties the knot and then ties it again, the same way he once showed her, tight enough that Merlin winces as he speaks. “Your plan sucked and I hate it. My turn. If you want to protest, you’re welcome to step off that trigger right now to shut me up.”

“Roxy – ”

Roxy slaps him, because there is a time for noble self-sacrifice and a time to shut the bloody hell up and this is so not the time for the former. “In the field, agents rule,” Roxy tells him, the same way he had told her once when she’d asked him too many times for his opinion on what to do next. “Welcome to my field, Merlin. Now shut the hell up and hold on tight.”

“Lancelot,” Harry says warily, even as he prevents Eggsy from getting any closer. “What exactly are you planning?”

“To not lose anyone else,” Roxy replies shortly.

* * *

When Merlin steps off the land mine, eyes closed and shoulders tense, Roxy is already triggering the grappling hook, sending Merlin flying high up in the canopy at breathtaking speeds to join her from where she had anchored the top with her own body weight. The explosion sends the guards flying, but although Merlin is clearly rattled as he comes to a stop, he’s alive and whole and _beautiful_ and Roxy kisses him because she can’t stop herself.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Merlin says dazedly.

“You built the fastest grappling hook in the world, so you should believe it,” Roxy says. “Now go hack us some Poppy tech, Merlin.”

“Your wish is my command,” Merlin tells him and then he swats her for good measure, even though it’s nowhere as powerful as the slap she gave him. “Back to the field with you, Agent Lancelot. It’s time we save the world.”

* * *

Playing tag with a robotic dog is so _not_ Roxy’s idea of a good time, but Eggsy is currently chasing after the case and Harry’s got the other dog, so Roxy just grits her teeth and keeps running. Merlin is currently swearing up a storm in her ear, so she doesn’t bother to ask him for any help because all he’d likely do at this point is shout random directions she doesn’t need.

Thank god Kingsman fabric is tear resistant.

* * *

“YOU’RE MINE!” Merlin yells in her ear, just as the robot dog suddenly goes completely still like someone had removed its head.

Roxy leans against the wall and resists slumping down and wheezing for breath. She probably looks awful; her hair is everywhere, her suit is splattered with dirt and mud and god knows what else; and she’s probably got quite a trek back to where Harry and Eggsy and the case and Poppy are, but she’s earned a rest, damn it.

“Are we really – keeping the – robot dog?” she pants.

“Maybe we can replace the parachute test with it. See who survives the robot dog,” Merlin tells her. “Three doors ahead and keep walking, Lancelot; I’ll guide you back to . . . ah, bollocks.”

“What?”

“Harry was right.”

“About what? Did Poppy not give us the password?”

“Worse. Harry currently has an electric lasso around his throat.”

“I was gone for ten minutes!”

“Well, I think you were needed five minutes ago.”

“BOYS.”

* * *

After they save the world again, they do exactly the same thing they did last time, because why not: they sit around, crack open all the alcohol and bring out all the junk food, and just lounge about in sweat pants. They make a little fenced in fort of couches and chairs and line it with pillows and blankets, and then they all curl up, exhausted and freshly showered and stealing each other’s chips. Merlin is a warm, steady presence at her back and Eggsy is so far gone that he’s practically snoring with Harry’s stomach as his pillow.

Harry looks at where Roxy is, where Merlin is, and back at Roxy. “Merlin.”

“You don’t get to talk, Harry. I didn’t propose her.”

“I can’t offer my congratulations?”

“No.”

“I’ll take them,” Roxy yawns, ignoring the way Merlin glares at her. “I’ve always wanted to be congratulated by a senior agent.” 

“I am a senior agent,” Merlin mutters darkly.

Roxy pats at his shoulder and misses entirely, but he catches her hand anyways and kisses her fingers so she’s pretty sure she’s forgiven. “You’re Merlin. He’s the Galahad. It’s a little bit different, you know. Also, you never congratulate – ”

“How’s that for a congratulations?” Merlin murmurs, right after kissing her into forgetting where she was going.

“OH MY GOD MY EYES!” Eggsy wails.

FINIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so next bit is either gonna be a Merlin POV or a Harry POV. Not sure which yet.
> 
> So yeah, this escape is probably bs, but I am firmly in denial land about Merlin, so. Also in the Arrow tv show we've totally seen people just like . . . Tarzan their way off landmines and live so this is my new headcanon and I will take it to my grave. That or my other headcanon which I'll present in the Merlin POV ficlet.


	3. Poppy deactivates the landmines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Poppy had deactivated the landmines before Merlin stepped off?

Hearing the click go off under Eggsy’s feet makes Merlin’s heart freeze. He’ll never have the kind of connection that Harry and Eggsy have, because that’s an once-in-a-lifetime meeting of kindred souls whose jagged edges clash perfectly against each other, but Merlin and Eggsy and Roxy saved the world once upon a time. That creates its own once-in-a-lifetime bond, and they’ve forged it ever stronger with every mission together.

Besides, even if he never knew Eggsy, watching the way Harry stares at Eggsy like he wants to go back in time and walk right in front of Eggsy would be enough to make his heart hurt.

“Do. Not. Move,” Merlin orders, and trust Harry to relieve Eggsy of his bat and his suitcase to take away any potential distractions. He says nothing about the way Harry lets his fingers linger against Eggsy’s fingers, because he’s too busy hunting for the can of ice that Ginger had included in their supply case.

He starts digging and then sets about spraying, explaining as he goes because that’s ingrained in his nature as a handler, even if he hasn’t done this kind of thing in the field since he ascended to the Merlin position. “This will freeze the trigger mechanism. Only momentarily, but that might be all we need. On the count of 3, 2, 1 – MOVE!”

Eggsy bolts, obeying Merlin the way his training taught him too, and Merlin doesn’t give himself room to hesitate, just steps forward and settles his weight exactly where Eggsy is.

The way Eggsy stares at him like he’s been betrayed hurts almost as much as Harry’s expression.

“Our journey started years ago,” Merlin tells Eggsy, because he owes it to the lad to not leave things on bad terms like Harry did. “With a grenade and a mistake. Circle of life, as it were.”

Harry shifts and holds out his hand, as Merlin knew he would. It’s why he went overboard with the spraying, although to be honest the spray can really didn’t that much ice in it. “That journey started with my mistake, and it’s my turn to pay up,” Harry says. “Give me the can, Merlin.”

_In the field, agents rule._ It’s the one thing Merlin makes a point of telling every knight. Second-guessing will get them all killed, after all.

Merlin shrugs and lets the can drop. “It’s empty, Harry.”

“Merlin – ”

“This is not the time for sentiment,” Merlin interrupts. “People are dying. You know what needs to be done.”

“This ain’t right, you can’t pay for my mistake!” Eggsy hisses, and god. God he is still so young, and Merlin knows from Harry’s eyes that they are both experiencing the exact same urge to hug the boy and swaddle him away the cruel, cruel world, to cover his ears and shield his eyes and let him be happy as a gymnast or an artist or a Marine or whatever else a young Eggsy might have wanted to be.

But deep in his bones, he knows he has made the right choice.

He’s Merlin, the quartermaster, the inventor, the handler. He excelled in his own combat training, of course, and he’s sparred with other agents to keep himself fresh. But he can’t delude himself; the agents are trained to work together in ways that he simply won’t be able to fit in easily. Harry and Eggsy will be on the same wavelength in the way he couldn’t ever be, because he’s Merlin and used to spending fights frantically trying to keep his agent alive through computers.

Of course, that’s the logical reason he knows that will sway Harry and Eggsy out loud.

Realistically, the decision is a lot more selfish.

Harry, as painful as it is to acknowledge, can survive Merlin’s death. They’ve had a long time to work together and make memories and have fights and make amends. Harry has many years to think wistfully back upon when he inevitably feels the guilt welling up.

Harry would not survive Eggsy’s. 

To lose not only Lee but Eggsy would break something in Harry, something more than shooting his dog or committing mass murder in a church or even the first time he had tortured a prisoner for secrets. It would break Harry as surely as it would break Merlin to watch Harry shatter inside. Merlin doesn’t think there’s a name for the kind of bond Harry and Eggsy have, but he does know the name for what would happen if that bond was broken.

In the end, he’s the strategist. Harry and Eggsy can survive without him. It’ll bring them both unimaginable pain, but they won’t be destroyed beyond repair the way they will if either dies here right now. He is the logical choice.

He lets Harry chase the boy off for him, though. He’s said crueler things to Eggsy to help the boy survive but right now, that cruelty is beyond him. He’s a little too busy trying not to fall apart.

“Merlin,” Harry whispers, like a prayer, like a benediction, like a promise. “It’s been an honor.”

_I know,_ Harry is saying, because Harry is sometimes a bit slow but never stupid. _I know and it kills me to know it._

“Go,” Merlin replies, drawing on the last bit of strength he has left. “Go and save the world, Harry Hart.”

It’s the first thing he ever said to Harry, back when they had embarked on their first mission as agent and handler. It’s probably morbidly fitting that it will be the last thing he ever says to Harry’s face. Back then, of course, it had made Harry grin cockily into his mirror. Now it just makes Harry draw his shoulders up and salute him, the way Kingsman have always saluted those who threw themselves into the way of death to protect their younger members.

* * *

Singing the song is easy. If Merlin is going to die today, he’s going to take as many as these idiots with him and he’s going to clear the way for his agents. It’s what a handler does.

When they’re close enough, Merlin takes a deep breath, closes his breath, thinks of Roxy and Harry and Eggsy and Lee and James and Percival and Chester and Amelia and Sophia, all of his friends and family, and tells himself, Be brave. 

Then he takes off his foot on the landmine . . . and nothing happens.

“Ah, bollocks,” Merlin mutters, just as Harry and Eggsy simultaneously swear and start shooting.

Then he leans down, grabs his trusty blade, and starts stabbing, because why the hell not.

* * *

Watching Harry and Eggsy fight together is like watching the dance of the sun and moon. It’s predictable but it is still breathtaking every single time one sets and the other rises, and the dance is so brilliant that it almost hurts to watch but Merlin can’t look away. They move so smoothly, switching off between who goes first and who shields their back, and they have absolute trust in each other to be exactly where they need to be.

Merlin sits back and occasionally picks off stragglers, whistling cheerfully as he bulldozes through Poppy’s security system.

“Are you – seriously – whistling Country Roads – right now?” Eggsy yells at him, pausing only to whip his legs around a guard and propel himself into the air to get a clearer shot at the man aiming a gun at Harry’s head while Harry cheerfully beats a trio over the head with his Rainmaker.

“Shut up and keep shooting, I’m busy,” Merlin shouts back.

Eggsy sputters at him, and damn, Merlin should really get out in the field more. The effect of Eggsy sputtering, at a loss for words, is rather lessened when heard over comms instead of in person.

“Robot incoming!” Merlin warns, seeing its mode switch from “watch and wait” to “attack”.

“So bloody hack it!”

“Little busy hacking the suitcase that delivers the antidote, Galahad junior. You’ll survive.”

“I am _not_ – ” 

“Eggsy, down!” Harry orders sharply, and then because Harry is a drama queen he slides into place besides his protégé like an athlete rushing to make home base and shoots a bola at the robot’s bullets before popping open his Rainmaker to shield them from the debris. Merlin, because he’s used to it, just rolls his eyes and continues typing, whilst Eggsy stares up at Harry like the man’s hung the stars, sun, and the moon.

Harry does not help matters by offering a hand to pick Eggsy up like the boy’s a princess.

_If you don’t remember to take off your glasses before you bed him, I will not be held responsible for my actions,_ Merlin types into Harry’s glasses, which he’s named Galahad senior mostly because it will infuriate Harry.

Harry tilts his head like a dog, his good eye flickering across the keyboard. _One would think you’d be delighted for such a beautiful show._

_I will electrocute you both and then I’ll have the most beautiful show of all: silence._

“If you and Merlin are talking telepathically, now really ain’t the time,” Eggsy interrupts briskly, reloading his gun and setting his sights on the diner.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Eggsy, if Merlin and I could talk telepathically – ”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll send Galahad junior the details of your first honeypot.”

Harry immediately shuts his mouth, because after that mission was concluded, they hadn’t spoken to each other for six months for fear of laughing themselves silly at what had happened. They had only gotten over it when Arthur, who had quickly grown very annoyed at the idea of the quartermaster-in-training and the most rapidly rising Knight having a fight, had sent them into a three month deep cover mission where they’d only had each other to rely on. Merlin still is missing some gaps in his memory from that mission thanks to Harry’s determination to drink him under the table.

Eggsy lights up, because of course he does. “Is it on the servers?”

“Yes, most certainly, under the file _Eggsy is not allowed in this_.”

Eggsy pouts.

Harry melts.

It would be adorable if they weren’t super spies and the world was ending, so Merlin just contents himself to tap his glasses and take a photo before he strides forward into the diner, knowing his Knights will follow him.

“Oh my god,” Poppy says, and pushes the case at Charlie. “Take it and run!”

“Eggsy, please get the case,” Merlin says, catching the way Eggsy’s eyes gleam at the idea of chasing down his rival and the way Harry just looks at his protégé with hearts in his eyes. “Harry, let’s get the password, shall we?”

“Nice try,” Poppy says, and whistles.

Harry takes one shot and then sighs when the robotic dog just spits it out. “Merlin, change of plans: you get the password, I’ll handle the bloody dog.”

“Go forth and conquer.”

Merlin then seats himself in the very nice diner chair and starts typing out on his clipboard, humming absently under his breath. Occasionally, he’ll smirk as Harry and Eggsy’s feeds show his Knights running in all different directions to complete their objectives, but mostly he just sits and hums and types some more.

“What, no threats of torture or promises of bribes?” Poppy asks sweetly.

“Oh I don’t do either,” Merlin says. “We are supposed to be gentlemen, you know. Speaking of which, do hold still.”

“Why – ouch!”

“That’s a subdermal implant containing the latest nanites,” Merlin explains cheerfully. “It’ll impede itself and then start making its way to the nearest blood vessel. If you walk more than, oh, six feet away from me, it’ll trigger an automatic release for the deadliest neurotoxin in the world to start coursing through your veins. So do sit tight, my dear, so that I can work. If you’d like to make it easier for me, of course, then by all means please provide the password.”

Poppy glowers at him. “I’ll going to make sure that Bennie chews off your head first.”

“What, the dog?” Merlin stretches out a foot and prods at the dog house. “No, I don’t think your little pet will be going anywhere.”

Then he leans down and presses his signet ring to the house, pressing the hidden button and watching as the dog house lights up with electricity, the final kickstarter needed for the virus he’s slipped neatly into the dog’s mainframe. It dies with horrifying shrieks and a few sparks, but all in all it’s rather worth it for the way Poppy’s eyes bulge out.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” Merlin says. “I fear I was rather lax beforehand. I am Merlin, quartermaster of Kingsman. And most of your technology is now mine.”

“My suitcase isn’t. It’s not part of my network,” Poppy fires back.

“That’s why I would like you to tell me the password, do keep up.”

“How about . . . no.”

Merlin just shrugs. He’ll find a way eventually, and once his Knights get back with Plan C he can just activate that. So he turns his attention back to Harry and Eggsy, and then does a double take.

“Galahad senior, why are you covered in feathers?”

“I’ve made the acquaintance,” Harry grunts out between using what looks like a bowling ball to bash in the other dog’s head, “of a very nice man named Elton John.”

“Wait, seriously? Elton John is – ouch!”

“Galahad junior, pay attention to your own target,” Merlin reprimands. “Also why are you still fighting. That watch can hack anything with a microchip and I know for a fact that Charlie’s right arm is bionic.”

Sheepish silence meets his words. “How . . . do I do that again?”

“Never mind,” Merlin sighs, and then he hacks his own bloody tech to hack Poppy’s tech. “Just end this, will you?”

Eggsy twirls to get back on his feet and cackles as Charlie is forced to whirl around with him, flipping up and around and then back down with a thud and a groan. Sometimes Eggsy is proper and quiet and sheer poetry in movement, and other times he’s still a young man getting to use a cool watch to beat up a prick who’d made his life hell in training. Merlin just sighs and turns his attention back to Harry, who is in the middle of wrangling three tickets from Elton John.

“Galahad, I hate concerts.”

“We can use it as a training exercise for Eggsy.”

“Or I can merely stick the boy in a simulator. In what universe was that supposed to make me agree?”

“The universe where we both want Eggsy to be happy after all of this is said and done.”

“Low blow, Galahad,” Merlin mutters, because Harry knows that they’re both going to want to spoil and cuddle Eggsy for a long while after this, because they’re used to the adrenaline crash of saving the world and Eggsy really isn’t. For heavens’ sake, after the last time he had went and slept with a princess.

“I learned ruthlessness from the best.”

“Oh, just get back here so we can end this whole mess.”

* * *

Merlin is in the middle of surveying Poppy with his glasses to make sure that she really is dead – handler glasses are much more powerful than agent ones because they aren’t made to be bulletproof, merely very damage resistant – when he hears Harry’s sharp intake of breath and the clatter of Eggsy’s shoes against the ground as if he’s quite suddenly jumped to his feet.

“We’re on the same side, you’re just – you’re just having a brain fart. Like Harry,” Eggsy says, his voice quivering just the slightest bit.

Merlin taps into the security cameras and barely bites back a swear word. Of course it’s Agent bloody Whiskey. The man has the nerve to stand there with his electric lasso around Harry’s throat and a gun trained on Eggsy’s face, and quite calmly, as if he can’t see the devastation writ clear across Eggsy’s face. He doesn’t really blame the boy, of course; his own stomach is gurgling unpleasantly at the idea of losing Harry again after only just getting him back.

So Merlin does the reasonable thing: he stands up, plucks two blades from his holster, and chucks them straight through the air.

One lands in Whiskey’s arm, the soft inner lower arm where muscle and nerve control fingers, and Whiskey’s hand immediately opens when Merlin severs the ones responsible for hovering over the trigger threatening Harry’s neck and life.

The other lands in Whiskey’s throat.

“And good riddance to you,” Merlin says pleasantly, even as Harry shoves the lasso over his head as though it’s a wriggling, poisonous snake.

Eggsy rushes straight at Harry afterwards, and even though it’s on Harry’s blind side because Harry had flinched towards Merlin when he’d popped up with a knife in each hand, Harry just sighs and opens his arms and welcomes Eggsy close, letting the boy take comfort in his warmth and his presence. Eggsy is a tactile person – it’s in his file, as is everything else – but Merlin had known it the second Harry had first laid a hand on Eggsy back in the bar so long ago, and Harry clearly hasn’t forgotten, from the way he soothes Eggsy with gentle hands and soft words.

It’s great, except – world is ending and all that.

“Do I have to enter the password too?” Merlin asks wearily.

“If you would be so kind,” Harry replies.

Merlin grumbles, but it’s not like agents haven’t done this exact thing to him before, so whilst Harry and Eggsy are hugging it out he swivels the case to face him and neatly types in the password to release the antidote.

* * *

Eggsy nods off two minutes after take-off, which isn’t really that surprising. Harry gets his tie and his dusty, bloody suit jacket off and then tucks Eggsy under a thicket blanket with a pillow under his head before he flounces off to shower and change himself. Merlin busies himself with playing around on Poppy’s very interesting suitcase, because he’s learned the hard way long ago that cutting off the head to a dangerous cartel in no way makes the body die off.

He’s so caught up in doing so, in fact, that it takes him three whole minutes to realize that Harry is pointedly staring at him.

“Yes?” he prompts.

“You were going to step off that trigger and die,” Harry says, legs neatly crossed and arms folded like a gentleman, like his tone isn’t a harbinger of a man spoiling for a fight. 

“Yes. I was.”

“That should have been me.”

“Galahad,” Merlin says, and then, “Harry. We both know Eggsy would not have survived your death a second time.”

“And I’m meant to survive yours?”

“As morbid as it may sound: yes. Eggsy is the future of Kingsman, and you know it as damn well as I do. Eggsy can always find another Merlin. He’ll never find another Harry.”

“He seems to be doing just fine with Princess Tilde.”

“Tilde has been his anchor,” Merlin acknowledges. “But, Harry, you were the one who built him a ship.”

“Only because you helped me build mine,” Harry says.

There’s a weight to their words that there rarely is. They’ve both had to stare death in the face and acknowledge that today might be the day, but normally they handle it the expected way. Harry usually gets incredibly drunk and Merlin usually goes and blares John Denver for hours and hours on end. 

This time, he meets Harry’s eyes and holds them, because they have both been a centimeter from death and they both know they’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Harry yields first. “So now what?” he asks, even as he places a gentle hand on Eggsy, who is blinking blearily up at them both. 

“Now we rebuild,” Merlin says. “And I call it on not being Arthur.”

“Well, I’m certainly not being Arthur,” Eggsy yawns. He rolls his head to look at Harry, mouth creasing in a wide smile.

“Absolutely not,” Harry tells them.

* * *

Just for that, Merlin makes sure to dig up the original crown, which Kingsman stopped using decades ago, to plop on Harry’s head during his coronation.

FINIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this all grew out of a little idea I bounced around in my head, namely which is that Poppy clearly was able to turn off the landmines when she wanted to bring people in (like the lawyer) and she told the guards to bring Merlin in, soooo . . . what if she just turned off the landmines? Obviously IDK how that would work with already triggered landmines, but IDGAF.
> 
> The Merlin POV won out as the next chapter because it's shorter than the Harry one and I could get it out faster. That's really it. For people craving the Harry POV, it's next unless it becomes too long and I get impatient and do my Whiskey POV instead. Uh, after I finish my Reel Kingsman anyways cuz that's due like . . . tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> If you also want someone to scream about Kingsman 2 with, come flail with me on [tumblr](http://thesilverqueenlady.tumblr.com)!


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